


Ways They've Always Been Friends

by wisdomeagle



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Movie Night, Schmoop, Six Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-27
Updated: 2005-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-18 11:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4704602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tripping backwards and finding themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ways They've Always Been Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meri_sefket](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=meri_sefket).



> Back-up fic for meri_sefket in the [Friendship Ficathon](http://www.livejournal.com/users/estepheia/462744.html). Her requests are at the end.

##### 1\. Age Thirty

"Now _this_ \-- this, Willow, is a bad movie."

"I dunno," Willow said, reaching absently for the popcorn. "I kinda think the hotness of the actress makes up for the badness of the acting."

"Spoken like a true guy. You sure you aren't up for a sex change operation to go with the gay?"

She willed herself not to engage. It was so tempting, but she had a lot of experience with resisting temptation.

"Now, normally, I'd agree with you, but in this case, the abysmal directing -- note how he just totally failed to go for the obvious boob shot! -- more than makes up for the hotness that is --"

"So you want to stop watching?" Willow nibbled absently at the popcorn. "There's plenty more where that one came from."

"Twenty-one bad movies from Blockbuster. Nothing better."

"It would be better if Buffy were here," Willow said with a sigh. "Why does Friday Night Movies 'n' Beer always turn into Buffy and the Slayerettes on Patrol?"

"She'll be back eventually," Xander said with a vicious frown. "Now, what'll it be -- horror action flick, or weepy girlie movie?"

"Do we have anything with lost animals?"

"Those movies always make you cry, Will."

"No time like the present for some old-fashioned bawling, right?"

"You got it," Xander said, and popped Incredible Journey into the DVD player.

##### 2\. Lost Animals

"To Willow!" Anya popped the cork from the champagne with excitement no one else was feeling. When no one responded to her toast, she rolled her eyes elaborately and started pouring drinks for everyone.

"Having a happy birthday, Willow?" Xander asked, accepting a drink with one hand and offering her a present with the other.

"I suppose. I wish Tara were around."

Xander wriggled his eyebrows. "Would there be smoochies in that case? Maybe some incredibly inappropriate PDAs?"

"Maybe," Willow said, trying to leer and succeeding in looking slightly drunk. "I thought my twentieth birthday would be, you know -- more birthdayish."

"Well, there are presents -- and look, we put stickers on the package. Puppies and kitties, Willow. Can't resist that, can you?"

"I miss our kitty. And I miss Tara, and --"

"Hey. Whoa. Birthday present here?"

"Right. Happy time. Miss Kitty Fantastico won't be lost forever, and Tara will be back in a week, and everything's going to be okay."

"Plus, kitten stickers on your present."

##### 3\. Not Lost Forever

"Xander, we shouldn't!" Willow was dangerously close to hysterical.

"What? It's the first day of spring, right? We always christen the first day of spring by going uptown and diving into swimming pools not our own."

"Always as in, ever since you thought of it last year," Willow said, using her Adult Voice and putting her hands on her hips. "It's not right, Xander, and especially not since -- you know.

##### The Thing

."

"The thing where there was inappropriate kissing? Are you saying I'm unbearably attractive in my speedo?"

"No! Well, maybe, but that's not the point! I'm not wearing a bikini in front of you, not without Oz around."

"Last time I checked, Oz is not part of our Willow and Xander springtime traditions. Willow, come on. You, me, trespassing. What can be wrong about that?"

Willow sat on her bed and frowned heavily at Xander. "If you don't see what's wrong there, maybe we need to not be hanging around each other so much."

"Hey." Xander took a seat on the bed a good safe distance from Willow. "Me and Cordelia, that seems to be pretty much broken. And you and Oz, that seems to be pretty good, right? But he's a boyfriend -- and if being with Cordy taught me anything -- other than what magazines to read for the latest spring fashions -- it's that boyfriends aren't necessarily forever. But friendships are. Okay?"

Willow laughed uncomfortably. "How can I say no to you when you always say things like that?"

"I'm hoping you won't be able to."

##### 4\. Hopes

Willow thought the springtime of their lives had faded before Buffy even reached Sunnydale, and that their last summer sun had set the day before their sophomore year of college started. But she refused to believe that this was winter, the closing of their lives before they'd even had a chance to blossom. Everything she'd learned in England, every flower petal and breathing exercise, told her that this couldn't be winter. Especially not when she knelt by Tara's grave, not when Xander stared longingly at the telephone and cracked himself another beer. If the world was ending, it couldn't end like _this_.

"Watcha thinking, Will?"

"Is this what you thought it would be like?"

Xander looked down at his lap. "I never thought about being an adult. It was something that happened to other people. People like my parents, or like Giles, or heck, even like you. But I wasn't supposed to grow up."

"But did you think you'd be married? Lots of little Harrises running around, a wife in the kitchen?"

"That what you wanted?" When had Xander's voice turned so dull? While she was in England, reciting creeds and finding the way to the center of the Earth?

"I thought I did -- I thought I wanted to be married, to have a career, to have it all. But I never saw this, all of us sitting around, waiting for an apocalypse, waiting for our friends to start killing each other."

"Yeah." Xander took a long sip of beer. "Me neither." 

She reached for her coat, figuring it was time to head back to the homestead, see if Buffy was doing okay, but Xander put a hand on hers to stop her. "You know what I always did see in my future, Willow?"

"What?"

"I always saw you, stopping by to see if I was okay. I can't fall too far, Will, not if I've got you in my life."

Willow hurried out the door, ashamed of the tears in her eyes.

##### 5\. Stopping By 

Xander rubbed his eyes when he woke up and found a red-headed witch sprawled in the corner of his hut. She didn't belong there. That was kind of the point of having a hut. It was ugly, and cramped, and had one hole for cooking and one for shitting. Suburban girls -- even ones who had spent their adolescence chopping up demon heads and getting in touch with their inner Motorbike Barbie -- didn't have any place here.

He blinked at her in confusion, then finally said, "Morning, Will."

"Whaa...? Oh. Xander. Right. So you're probably wondering why I'm here, right? But the thing is, I didn't have time to call -- plus, uh, I don't think your cell would work in here."

"Verizon doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to roaming," said Xander, expert roamer, part-time wanderer, and all-round hobo. "So what brings you to this side of town?"

"It's time to come home," Willow said, running a hand through her long hair, in which a dozen or so bugs had made their home while she'd slept. She didn't belong here but despite the dirt, she looked like she was happy to see him.

"Willow? Uh, home kind of fell into a crater, didn't it?"

She laughed, and her laughter seemed to displace a month's worth of grime. "Buffy's talking about going to back to California, and even Giles has had enough of tea and crumpets, so... so I was sent to find you and get you to come with us.

"Ah."

"You ready?"

Xander rubbed his eyes again, delaying tactic, and half-heartedly folded up the scrap of blanket he'd been sleeping on. He thought about Anya, and for the first time he could remember, the remembrance didn't bring a sharp pang to his heart. It seemed good, to remember her. Good to think about the past, and maybe even to try to find it again.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready to come back."

##### 6\. Baddest Movies

"It doesn't exactly improve on rewatching, does it?" Willow asked, frowning distractedly at the big screen TV they'd gotten in exchange for saving the original owner's daughter from a three-foot tall snail that breathed toxic slime. She wasn't sure whether there were dancing cats on the screen, or whether she'd helped herself to too many of Xander's beers.

"Huh. No, not really." Xander seemed to be trying to figure out the same thing. "So what next? Shall we wait up for Buffy, or try another one of Hollywood's finest? Do we have Ocean's Fifteen, by any chance?"

She looked through the pile of DVDs. "Nope; I think all that's left is Disney. Or the first season of Friends, but surely we aren't that desperate."

"Speak for yourself," Xander said, reaching over Willow's lap to grab some popcorn.

"Hey, hey -- no naughty touch!"

"I'll show you naughty touch," Xander said, and seemed to be making a grab for her breasts -- which would have resulted in much screaming about boy cooties -- but instead he stretched his arms wide around her and buried her in a hug.

"You'll never run away to Africa again, will you?"

"If you never run away to South America."

"Or farther?"

"Or farther. You stay right here."

"I think I might go to the moon someday," Willow said sleepily.

"You've got to take me with you." 

"Of course," she sighed, snuggled between the arm of the couch and Xander. "I wouldn't go anywhere without my best friend."

**Author's Note:**

> Danielle requested Xander and Willow, the ocean, stickers, spring, a hug, not too much angst or death, no pre-series stories.


End file.
